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He is one of two main possibilities of being the father of my great grandmother.

It is a long story.  On that 1861 census is also George Park, chief engineer in the Royal Navy, who was the father of Samuel Park who married my great grandmother's mother, and then the surnames of the children were changed from Wilson to Park.  On their birth certificates they were given the surname Wilson, with the space for the father's name left blank.  Wilson was not the mother's surname, she calls herself Thomasina Wilson.

I have seen a photograph of my grandfather, my great grandmother's son, and he has a striking look that I have seen on Scottish people, such as Gary McKinnon, especially the eyes.  Sort of Asian looking eyes on very Nordic looking people.

I am curious who my biological ancestors were, and the mystery of who my great grandmother's father was.  It does look as though Thomas Wilson knew the Park family, having worked alongside George Park.

I am trying to find as much as I can about all of them.

Also, and this might seem woo to genealogists, but as I had the date of birth for my great, great grandmother, I tried doing her astrological chart and she has a Sun Pluto conjunction in about 2 degrees Taurus, the Sun representing the man in a woman's chart, her father or husband.  At the time, 1875 and 1877, when she had her two children, mysteriously out of wedlock, transiting Neptune was exactly conjunct this natal Sun Pluto conjunction, in early Taurus.  I interpret that to mean that she was involved with a particular man very intensely.  A man who was away at sea (Neptune) a lot would be a problem.  She did eventually marry Samuel Park, but hinted that the father of her children was Thomas Wilson.  The marriage to Samuel Park ended, she was living with her children and a male lodger she later married, and calling herself a widow years before he did die at sea; Samuel Park was a master mariner (2nd mate) in the merchant navy.

I have had my DNA tested, and according to MyHeritage there is a huge amount of Scottish, or Welsh, or Irish (57%) and also of Scandinavian DNA (27%), which definitely comes from my paternal side, and probably whoever my great grandmother's father was.  From what little I understand about the way DNA works, it looks as though I could have a disproportionately high amount of DNA from this particular line (from the way I share DNA with others related to me).

I am very curious to know one way or the other if either Thomas Wilson or Samuel Park is a biological ancestor.  They were both Scottish, from the area around Edinburgh to the borders, and both had jobs that took them out to sea a lot, one an engineer in the Royal Navy, the other a master mariner in the merchant navy.  I don't think the mother was involved in any casual relationships, the astrological pattern is showing a very intense relationship.

I have traced a lot about Samuel Park but the only real information I know about Thomas Wilson is what is on that 1861 census, and that he was working closely with George Park, Samuel Park's father.  A strange coincidence, and others have said that the mother was hinting that the father's name was Thomas Wilson, by using the name Thomasina Wilson for herself, so they were registered with the surname Wilson.

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I am curious generally about how UK graveyards work.  Do they always have paperwork showing who is buried in them and exactly where, and if so where do you find this?  I am also curious who pays for the maintenance of old gravestones?  Presumably in private cemeteries it is the new burials who pay for the maintenance of the old stones?  And a lot of old graveyards are beautiful places that councils maintain because they are of historic importance?  I wonder how threatened the old gravestones are that have no living family to care about them, are they ever just taken down and new burials put in their places, due to the need for space?

I wonder what the logistics are of an old gravestone, of somebody who died between say 1850 and 1920, meaning anything to anybody, such that if you photograph them and put them on the Find a Grave website anybody would find that useful?  How many hits do Find a Grave memorials tend to get anyway?  Who are these likely to be useful to?  People researching their family history mostly I suppose, but also historians in general?

Some of these old gravestones have so much genealogical detail on them, as well as being beautiful, that I wonder what happens to them.  I am curious about those people who lived in these places long ago.  Most of these people left little trace, they were not famous.  In one cemetery I read on some nuns' epitaph a request to pray for the dead; I am not especially religious, but find it deeply important to remember these people who lived and died and seem forgotten, and various different religions seem to have similar attitudes.

Also, I would be grateful for any tips on how best to photograph gravestones.  It can be a question of do you just get a close up of the information so it can be read, or do you try to get background into the photograph?  I think the most beautiful gravestone I photographed was maybe because it had a stone angel with a background of a bit of blue and white sky, other shapes of headstones, trees and flowers, and you could also read the inscriptions.  If I was wanting a photograph for my family tree, that is what I would want.

Good afternoon,

It's sometime since I was in the cemetaries. As far as I can recall the Extra Mural Cemetary is the original dating back to the mid 1800s. Shown on the map as the large open areas and contains all the large old victorian mausoleums and graves.

Woodvale opened in my lifetime sometime in the fifties. It is shown on the map as lots of small plots with letters and numbers.

Burials before the cemetaries opened were at the different churches around the city.

John915

Thanks.  I have read all the information I can find, such as on Wikipedia, and it seems, though I am not sure, that Woodvale is as you say a lot more recent and that all the old graves, mostly nineteenth century but definitely pre about 1920, are in the Extra Mural Cemetery.  I couldn't find a clear physical dividing line between the two, unless the road that I walked along back to the southern Lewes Road entrance gate is the demarcation line, with graves to its south part of Woodvale and graves to its north part of the Extra Mural Cemetery.

Further confused by the Brighton and Preston Cemetery, which I read is south of these, that might have been what I saw in the distance